MMX metadata framework is a lightweight implementation of OMG Metadata Object Facility built on relational database technology. MMX framework is based on three general concepts:

Metamodel | MMX Metamodel provides a storage mechanism for various knowledge models. The data model underlying the metadata framework is more abstract in nature than metadata models in general. The model consists of only a few abstract entities... see more.

Access layer | Object oriented methods can be exploited using inheritance to derive the whole data access layer from a small set of primitives created in SQL. MMX Metadata Framework provides several diverse methods of data access to fulfill different requirements... see more.

Generic transformation | A large part of relationships between different objects in metadata model are too complex to be described through simple static relations. Instead, universal data transformation concept is put to use enabling definition of transformations, mappings and transitions of any complexity... see more.

In short, a text file is downloaded (get), unzipped (unpack), stripped from CR's with sed (strip) and gets loaded into staging area (read). If the target table exists the rows that are not in the target table already get INSERTed. Finally, incoming file is archived away (move) and the temp files are trashed (clear). All in all, a typical plain vanilla data warehousing task. At this point, some explanations are probably needed.

1. The required parameters, filename and tablename get their values in some other (calling) package outside this one. If not, the package get an error. The rest of the parameters are optional, ie. they might get their values from a calling procedure, if not they fall back to the defaults.

2. The external utilities (get, unpack, strip etc.) get their context in the global configuration file (resources/globals.xml), like this:

<entry key="get">wget %target:-O :% %overwrite::-nc% %source%</entry>

%target%, %overwrite% and %source% are evaluated to the actual get element attribute values.

3. xdtlDateCode is a variable that was evaluated to the current date in the startup.js script (there can be an arbitrary number of such variable definitions):